Kendrick Lamar opened this year's BET Awards with a hard-hitting powerful performance. As the stage lights came up, Kendrick stood on a vandalized cop car speaking "All my life I had to fight hitta" reflecting his experience growing up in Compton, California in an lower class neighborhood as a black man. As a huge American flag waves as a backdrop, youthful dancers unify the stage. The chorus of Kendrick Lamar's single chants "we gon' be alright." To most, the irony of many young black women and men (nonviolently) dancing with American flags as Lamar passionately raps lyrics to his song was clearly conveyed. Somehow his political and uplifting message to the world offended a particular group of people.
Fox News (of all stations) was quick to outline lines in the songs such as "we hate po po" and "my gun might blow," assuming that Kendrick performing on top of the vandalized cop car was promoting violence. What they failed to highlight is the rest of the line "we hate po po, when they kill us dead in the street fo sure," which justifies why people have a strong disliking for law enforcement.
Hearing the breakdown and criticism of Fox's analysis of the song and performance is honestly disgusting. "Hip-Hop has done more damage to African Americans than racism..." says Geraldo Rivera. To call his performance counter-productive and compare it to the church shooting in South Carolina is foolish. It proves that the disconnect between race, age and privilege is bigger than you can imagine. The photo above was taken outside of the Microsoft Theater the day of the BET Awards. [I] took the photo working the BET Awards out of excitement, not only as a fan of Kendrick Lamar, but knowing that mostly everything he does is consciously well thought out with the influence of his image in mind.
Being a young black American citizen, I did not want to kill a cop watching that artistic performance. Truthfully, I wanted to go hug someone, dance, go vote, write, something like that. No feelings of violence were provoked and from reading social media, no one felt that way either. Secondly, [white] America needs to get over the fact that [we] are going to express ourselves in ways we know how. Living in a society where systematized, physical and mental racism is legal, you can't expect all "oppressed" people to sit back and never say anything do you?
Not all Hip-Hop artist seek to empower, uplift and motivate urban culture through music and visuals. That is a huge flaw that Hip-Hop faces today, true. There is absolutely music that evokes violence, promotes misogyny, sex, drugs, and balling out with new money but there's far more artist that with one song can overpower all of that. Kendrick Lamar is no way perfect and his lyrics don't always provide a profound message, but using his opportunity at this year's BET Awards, he chose to bring to life a piece of his reality.
Usually, he doesn't respond to critics but the comments made by Fox News obviously got under his skin. He took to "TMZ Live" to express his refute against the comments made towards not just his performance, but him as an artist. "His attempt is diluting the real problem...for the most part its avoiding the truth. This is my world, my reality. This is what I talk about in my music.Me on a cop car is a performance piece after these senseless acts..." Kendrick tells TMZ last week. His attempts is to take his talent and his frustration into the studio and create something that can provide hope to the kids, to show them a better way.
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"They already had the concept in mind. I had actually just done a painting on theEllen Show with Kendrick. It was done in three minutes and thirty seconds so that’s, for sure, the most pressure. After Ellen, they had decided what they wanted to do with the car and reached back out to me to see if I wanted to do it. So of course, I’m going to take the challenge. It was dope because they trusted me to do whatever I wanted to in conjunction with their concept.... It’s funny. It’s very interesting to hear comments from people who are so far detached from what’s actually going on in reality. [Geraldo] didn’t get the songlyrics right so it’s just a guy looking to be relevant on something he doesn’t know anything about. I don’t know. I guess you have to take it with a grain of salt because no one is looking for his opinion on the hip-hop community, black culture or anything.....That’s crazy. I haven’t shot anybody. I haven’t lit any stores on fire. I haven’t like hit anybody. I don’t do any of these things and I listen to some pretty graphic music. I grew up on Dre. Dre’s The Chronic and gangster rap. I grew up in Dallas. We listen to all kinds of music, but hip-hop has really only allowed me to express myself– and positively at that. I did something positive with my talents I’ve developed. It’s crazy to say that about hip-hop but never question rock ‘n’roll.... The cop cars were very relevant, especially with everything that’s going on in the landscape of beliefs and the African-American struggle. I do believe it represents a little bit of frustration of what’s going on in current times."
In case you missed it, watch Kendrick's BET Awards "Alright" performance here.
(Photo: Farrin Hymon, FARRINHEIT 411)
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